Civil 3D Painful Truths

What did Autodesk do in the latest Civil 3D release? Good stuff? Bad stuff? Useless stuff? What do you think?

Civil 3D users cannot count on the potential reality that Autodesk will change their software into what any Civil 3D user wants. No one really expects that. We all hope they will. Users do not choose what Autodesk decides to build and/or fix either in spite of expensive marketing efforts to the contrary.

This somewhat painful truth has been born out throughout the many release cycles of the Autodesk Civil 3D product. This truth is baked into the cake by the very processes that Autodesk internally employs to plan, develop, and check their code. In some respects…

Systemic Failure to Launch is Baked In

An official someone out there is going to tell you that

Civil 3D ships with ‘useful’ example templates and styles Someone will imply these demo resources actually work in a production environment They may tell you or imply they obey NCS standards. They don’t except in name.

They’ll offer to sell you a training course that may allow you to learn how to customize Civil 3D styles with a lot of trial and error. Training is essential, but this doesn’t solve your problem.

If you are a large enough customer, they may offer to help you do the customization that you need. This may initially work for you. Then you have to maintain it…

Otherwise – you are on your own.

The Autodesk Blacklist?

I think I can guarantee the official someone won’t mention this site or the Framework for Civil 3D. That’s strange? We track these things. There has been exactly one (1) web mention, tweet, retweet, or reference to this site or our products by an official someone at Autodesk or from any Autodesk Reseller since July 2010. Lots of these people follow me and read this blog regularly. Weird? Not really.

Our professional productivity cannot and is not chained to what Autodesk does. That does not mean we ignore what Autodesk does. We take full advantage. A single new tool and a couple of clicks may save you a month of work.

Our Framework for Civil 3D makes the tools more visible and useable to Civil 3D users. If you want to change what that looks like – we make that easy and much less expensive to maintain.

I personally contend that a lot of people’s problems with model-based software adoption and Civil 3D implementation have nothing to do with Autodesk’s code. For those of us who must perform work with the tools in real projects this is a strawman.

Autodesk Code is not the fundamental Civil 3D problem for users or organizations. The problem is the lack of managed and integrated resources that enable Civil 3D skill development and productive utilization. This problem we can all address.